Cleveland County has always been part of Yorkshire - Yorkshire Post letters

IN his report of the Cleveland Way’s 50th anniversary walk (The Yorkshire Post, May 25), David Behrens states that “nearly all” the walk “is still in Yorkshire, despite the boundary change of 1974 which declared Cleveland a county in its own right”.

The walk has never been other than entirely in Yorkshire. Cleveland County was an administrative area straddling the Tees Estuary. It did not coincide with the real Cleveland, the north east corner of Yorkshire, which stretches from Danby Wiske, near Northallerton, to Lythe, near Whitby. It was given the name Cleveland, carrying rich historic and scenic associations, to overcome opposition to the originally intended name of Teesside.

All the boundary changes were accompanied by strong official assurances that traditional county boundaries, identities and loyalties were unaffected. In any case Cleveland County was abolished in 1996. That surely leaves its former area south of the Tees unequivocally in Yorkshire – or where else? It really is most sad that, even in Yorkshire, it is necessary to keep making these points over and over again. The first duty of every Yorkshire person is to uphold the integrity of the county’s ancient boundaries.